Polish migration to the United Kingdom describes the temporary or permanent settlement of Polish people in the United Kingdom. Most Polish migrants arrived in UK after the 2004 enlargement of the European Union.[2] At the time of the 2011 Census, 521,000 Polish-born people reported being resident in the UK,[3] and there is a wider population of British Poles including the descendants of over 200,000 immigrants who settled in the UK after World War II.[4]

Poles are the third largest foreign born community after Irish and Indian born people in the UK[5] and the Polish language is the second most spoken language in England and the third most spoken language in the UK after English and Welsh, with 1% of Britain's population speaking Polish.[6][7] Since 2004 there has been an increasing number of Polish-British citizens in the UK. Poles also have the lowest unemployed rate, lower than born British only population and other immigrant groups (~4%, while rest is tourists, students or workers), and very high knowledge of English (about 90% have good or very good knowledge).[8]

According to the Medieval chroniclers Thietmar of Merseburg and Adam of Bremen, King Canute the Great - who ruled both Denmark and England - was the son of a Polish princess, a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland and sister of Boleslaw I of Poland. An inscription in "Liber vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester" mentions King Canute as having a sister named "Santslaue" ("Santslaue soror CNVTI regis nostri"), which without doubt is a Slavic name, and J. Steenstrup suggests this was a rendering of Świętosława. References in medieval chronicles to the involvement of Polish troops in invasions of England are likely related to Canute's Polish ancestry, constituting the earliest evidence of Poles arriving in the country.

After the Battle of Vienna, a pub in London's Soho area was called the 'King of Poland' and soon after the road in which it stands was named 'Poland Street' - which exists to this day. In the 18th century some Polish Protestants settled around Poland Street as religious refugees from the counter reformation in Poland.

The Poles made an crucial contribution to the Allied war effort, which directly led to the formation of the Polish British community as it exists today. The majority of Poles came to the United Kingdom as political émigrés after the German and Soviet occupation of Poland. In 1940, with the fall of France, the exiled Polish President, Prime Minister and government transferred to London, along with a first wave of at least 20,000 soldiers and airmen.

Perhaps most importantly, the Poles cracked early versions of the Enigma machine, which laid the foundations for subsequent British successes in deciphering German military signals and generating the Ultra intelligence which proved a key factor in many Allied successes during the war.[13] Former Bletchley Park cryptologist Gordon Welchman said: 'Ultra would never have got off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military... Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use.'[14]

By July 1945 228,000 troops of the Polish Armed Forces in the West were serving under the high command of the British Army.[12] Many of these men and women were originally from the Kresy region of eastern Poland including cities such as Lwow (now Lviv, Ukraine) and Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania). They had been deported from Kresy to the SovietGulags when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. When two years later Churchill and Joseph Stalin formed an alliance against Adolf Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the Anders Army and marched to Persia to create the II Corps (Poland) under British high command.

These Polish troops were vital to the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, and hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War. But at Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed that Stalin should keep the Soviet gains Hitler agreed to in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, including Kresy, and carry out Polish population transfers (1944–1946). Consequently, Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their Kresy homes to the Soviet Union, with the implication that relatives including wives and children would be at the mercy of the NKVD.[15] In reaction, thirty officers and men from the II Corps (Poland) committed suicide.[16]

Churchill explained his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a vote of confidence. Many MPs openly criticised Churchill over Yalta and voiced strong loyalty to the UK's Polish allies.[16] Some reporters felt Churchill was not confident Poland would be the independent and democratic country Polish troops could return to, because the prime minister also said: 'His Majesty's Government will never forget the debt they owe to the Polish troops... I earnestly hope it will be possible for them to have citizenship and freedom of the British empire, if they so desire.'[17]

"Following the invasion and fall of Poland in September 1939, many Polish servicemen and women made their way through France, Russia and other countries to the UK or British territories in the Middle East. They were formed into units which fought in the campaigns in North West Europe, Italy, North Africa and the Middle East. "At the end of the war, many of these Poles stayed in the United Kingdom and in order to ease the transition from a Polish military environment to British civilian life, a satisfactory means of demobilisation needed to be devised by the British authorities. This took the form of the raising, as a corps of the British Army, of the Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC), into which such Poles as wished to stay in the UK were allowed to enlist for the period of their demobilisation. "The PRC was formed in 1946 (Army Order 96 of 1946) and was disbanded after fulfilling its purpose in 1949 (Army Order 2 of 1950)." [Source: UK National Archives, Online Catalogue, Series Reference WO315.]

In the 1951 Census of the UK, the Polish-born population of the UK numbered some 162,339, up from 44,642 in 1931.[19][20]

The relaxation of travel restrictions to and from Poland saw a steady increase in Polish migration to the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Brixton, Earls Court and Lewisham were a few of the London areas where they settled. As these communities grew, it was felt by the Polish Catholic hierarchy and the English and Scottish hierarchies that Polish priests should settle and minister specifically to the spiritual needs of the Polish people. The first such parish was Brockley-Lewisham in 1951 and today there are 10 Polish parishes in London, in places such as Balham and Ealing. Thriving parishes also exist in many other UK towns and cities.

The longer established communities that ensued after the church established itself were mainly set up by former members of the Polish Resettlement Corps in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Around the hub of a Polish church would be Polish clubs, cultural centres as well as a variety of adult and youth organisations such as the Ex-Combatants (SPK), the Polish Youth Group (KSMP) and the Polish Scouting Movement (ZHP pgk). The original aims of these organisations was to ensure a continuation of Polish language, culture and heritage for the children of the ex-PRC members. Many of these groups are still active and steps are being taken to attract newer Polish migrants.

The Polish Government in London was not dissolved until 1991, when a freely elected president took office in Warsaw. The Polish people fought hard to combat communism, and for their right to liberty. Previously a base to fight against the communist regime in Poland, London came to be seen as an important centre to foster business and political relations.

Many of the Polish British community formed after the Second World War had friends and relatives in Poland. Partly because of this bond, there was a steady flow of migrants from Poland to the UK, which accelerated after the fall of communism in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Poles used the freer travel restrictions to move to the UK and work, sometimes in the grey economy.

At the expansion of the EU including Poland on 1 May 2004, the UK granted free movement to workers from the new member states.[22]

There were restrictions, covered by the Worker Registration Scheme, on benefits that Polish immigrants could claim, but they were abolished in 2011 in accordance with the Treaty of Accession 2003.[23] Most of the other longer-standing EU member states exercised their right to maintain immigration controls, but these ended in 2011 in line with the Treaty of Accession of 2003,[24] over entrants from these accession states,[25] although some states had removed these restrictions earlier.[26]

The Home Office publishes quarterly statistics on applications to the Worker Registration Scheme. Figures published in August 2007 indicated that some 656,395 persons were accepted on to the scheme between 1 May 2004 and 30 June 2007, of whom 430,395 were Polish nationals. However, as the scheme is voluntary, offers no financial incentive and is not enforced immigrants are free to ignore the scheme. They may work legally in the UK provided they have a Polish identity card or passport and a National Insurance number. This has led to some estimates of Polish nationals in the UK being much higher.[27]

The Polish magazine Polityka launched a 'Stay With Us' scheme offering young academics a £5,000 bonus to encourage them to stay and work at home in Poland. Additionally on 20 October 2007, a campaign was launched by the British Polish Chamber of Commerce called 'Wracaj do Polski' ('Come Back to Poland') which encouraged Poles living and working in the UK to return home.

By the end of 2007, stronger economic growth in Poland, falling unemployment and the rising strength of the złoty had reduced the economic incentive for Poles to migrate to the UK.[28] Labour shortages in Poland's cities and in sectors such as construction, IT and financial services have also played a part in stemming the flow of Poles to the UK.[29] According to the August 2007 Accession Monitoring Report, fewer Poles migrated in the first half of 2007 than in the same period in 2006.

There was a baby boom under Martial Law in Poland in the early 1980s. Consequently the 2000s saw an over-supply of new workers on the Polish job market. Unemployment rose and emigration was chosen by many young Poles. As Poland's demographic bulge slimmed, new entrants to the domestic labour market reduced and emigration slowed. Some commentators say the Polish baby-boomers began returning to Poland as they reach child-rearing age themselves.[28]

The 2001 UK Census recorded 60,711 Polish-born people resident in the UK.[30] 60,680 of these were resident in Great Britain (the UK minus Northern Ireland), compared to 73,951 in 1991.[31] With the migration that has followed Poland's accession to the EU, the Polish-born population in the whole of the UK is estimated to have risen to 515,000 in the year to March 2010.[21] Unofficial estimates have put the number of Poles living in the UK higher, at up to one million.[32][33][34]

Scotland has seen a significant influx of Polish immigrants with estimates of Poles currently living in Scotland ranging from 40,000 according to General Register Office for Scotland up to 50,000 as per Polish Council,.[36] The creation of a bilingual English-Polish newspaper[37] supports the estimated 5,000 Poles[38] now living in the Highlands. Edinburgh has around 13,000 Poles which is 2.7% of the city's population and is one of the largest Polish communities in the UK.

Official figures on the number of Polish people in Northern Ireland are difficult to obtain. The total number of Polish nationals who applied for a National Insurance Number is 12,020 as of 2005, and the number of people reporting Polish as a first language in the 2011 census was 17,100[42] but the actual number of residents is likely to be much higher.[43] A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) recruitment drive in November 2006 attracted applications from 968 Poles, with language exams being held both in Northern Ireland and Warsaw, but as of 2008[update], none have entered the PSNI's ranks.[44][45]

Many Poles who have migrated to the UK since the enlargement of the EU have brought children with them. This has created some pressure on school places and English language support services.[46] Despite language difficulties, research shows these pupils perform well in British schools and the presence of Polish pupils in schools has improved the performance of other pupils in those schools.[47]

Polish people living in the UK reported 42 "racially motivated violent attacks" against them in 2007, compared with 28 in 2004.[48] On 11 July 2012, the Polish Association of Northern Ireland called for action after Polish flags were burned on Eleventh Night bonfires in several locations across Belfast.[49]

The far-rightBritish National Party (BNP) have used anti-Polish sentiment,[51] and campaigned for a ban on all Polish migrant workers in the UK.[52] In one highly publicised incident, the party used a poster that showed a nostalgic picture of a Second World War Spitfire fighter plane under the slogan "Battle for Britain", during the party's 2009 European Elections campaign. However, apparently unknowingly, the photograph they used was accidentally that of a Spitfire belonging to the Polish 303 Squadron of the Royal Air Force. John Hemming, MP for Yardley, Birmingham, ridiculed the party for accidentally using an image of "Polish heroism" in their campaign: "They have a policy to send Polish people back to Poland – yet they are fronting their latest campaign using this plane."[53]

In January 2014, a Polish man, whose helmet was emblazoned with the flag of Poland,[54] claimed he was attacked by a group of 15 men outside a pub in Dagenham, London.[55] The victim blamed xenophobic speeches of the conservative Prime MinisterDavid Cameron.[56] During the same month in Belfast there were 7 attacks on Polish homes within 10 days, in which stones and bricks were thrown at the windows.[57]

Szmul Zygielbojm was a Jewish-Polish socialist politician, Bund leader, and member of the National Council of the Polish Government in Exile. He committed suicide to protest the indifference of the Allied governments in the face of the Holocaust.[59]